


Most Rapturous Truths

by smirkslightly



Category: One Piece
Genre: Canon Universe, F/M, Gen, M/M, POV Roronoa Zoro, Romance, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-14 04:40:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20594864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smirkslightly/pseuds/smirkslightly
Summary: Zoro, as a child, had accepted his oddity without question not thinking about the weird power as anything that special or helpful.Only when he’d met Koshiro had he even bothered to tell anyone about the bizarre stuff he saw.And Koshiro, after listening in that quiet meditative way he did, had nodded and called them auras.





	Most Rapturous Truths

Every since Zoro could remember he had seen people differently than others; seen _more _than others.

Much more.

Zoro could look at someone and understand exactly what they were feeling and what sort of person they were because he saw something else when he looked at them. Something more then even Haki or devil’s fruits could reveal.

Zoro, as a child, had accepted this oddity without question, moving on to much more interesting endeavors, like Kendo, not thinking about the odd power as anything that special or helpful. Only when he’d met Koshiro had he even bothered to tell anyone about the bizarre _stuff _he saw.

And Koshiro, after listening in that quiet meditative way he did, had nodded and called them auras.

“What?” Zoro asked, scrunching up his nose, as he ate a few more bites of onigiri.

Koshiro had given his small genteel smile and nodded thoughtfully.

“Auras, Zoro. From what you describe, I would say that’s what you see.”

At Zoro’s look of skepticism Koshiro had continued to explain. “An aura is like another subtle body, sometimes called a chakra or the breath of the soul. Auras are thought to be a sort of field of energy, that has many layers. Each relating to a part of your self.”

Zoro grunted to indicate he was listening, or at least attempting too.

Koshiro was finishing up, still looking contemplative. “I’ve heard of some people being able to see them. But they are usually highly spiritual leaders or gifted meditation experts. Some even think seeing auras is a subtler type of Haki, although I’m not sure that’s accurate. You should consider honing the gift by meditating often.”

Zoro nodded numbly. He was willing to learn whatever Koshiro taught him. Meditation didn’t seem that hard.

“Do you think that auras are what you are seeing?” Koshiro asked, looking genuinely curious.

Zoro took a moment to wipe his mouth and then considered the question.

To Zoro, auras were like halos of shifting light that usually encircled a person. Except they had more substance then light, more like wisps of strange smoke that were always moving and changing. Sometimes they seemed to cling to the person’s skin, concentrating on different parts of them and other times they seemed to spill out of them from everywhere, like their insides were leaking colourful mist.

He wasn’t sure about all the Haki or chakra stuff, but he supposed Koshiro’s title for what he saw was accurate enough.

“I suppose,” He answered Koshiro, with a slight shrug, as he reached for the last onigiri on the plate.

“Ah. Well, perhaps,” Koshiro said, with a slight glitter to his eye. “You would like to learn a bit more about them? I believe I may have some books about chakras-”

“Nah,” Zoro cut him off, as soon as he heard the word books. “ I’ll just figure it out myself.”

Koshiro looked thoroughly amused now.

“I would expect no less.”

So as Zoro trained, he also took some time, as Koshiro sometimes encouraged him to do, to mediate and consider auras. He did notice that each colour of an aura related to an emotion. And they fluctuated too between moods as fickle as a breeze. People were a huge mess of colours and emotions, sometimes the auras being so thick he could hardly see the physical person at all.

Which was why Zoro thought his strange power was more of a nuisance then a help.

Sometimes it was helpful in sparring, when he could see his opponents auras flicker from arrogant byzantium to the onyx of deep fear. Or when Zoro could tell from the sickly puce that they were weaklings to begin with. But most of the time the rage and whirl of emotions in battle was distracting at best and blinding at worst. Crimson rage blazed and glared at Zoro like a furnace. And even worse, thick burnt charcoal hatred could sometimes choke the very air out of Zoro’s lungs. Hatred, Zoro had found, was pure destruction and nothing else.

Sometimes though, sensing auras could lead to seeing even more then a person’s emotional and mental state. Zoro noticed that beyond their layers, beyond even the flesh and bone of the person themselves, he saw that auras could be windows to something deeper. Sometimes if Zoro focused hard, he could see right to the essence of who the person truly was. Sometimes Zoro could see glimpses of a person’s soul.

It was a startling fact to suddenly understand that. Zoro wasn’t sure what made him so certain about what he was seeing, but it was something he just __knew.__ Just like he knew that soul’s were something he probably shouldn’t look at, something that felt a bit too intimate.

The only soul he’d ever tried to actively see was Kuina’s.

“Lost again, Zoro,” Kuina had said, her dark eyes alighting with her usual triumph, and her smile was only slightly smug.

Zoro had hated it, that smug look. The fact that no matter what he did he never could defeat her. He couldn’t even get _one hit._

“I wouldn’t bother getting up Zoro,” Kuina said calmly. “I’ll just knock you back down.”

Zoro had sat up on his elbows and glared up at her. Kuina had grinned back. Her aura was full of whirling electric excitement and golden streaks of victory. And Zoro felt a surge of anger, desperation and jealousy.

And that’s when he had the idea to look at her soul. He’d thought, that perhaps, if he looked at it, he would find some way to beat Kuina. Find some way to understand her enough to be able to finally defeat her.

So Zoro concentrated, for the first time ever, on looking past her aura right to her soul. 

And what he saw was blinding.

Kuina’s soul was the pure white colour of the moon with a steely sharpness of a blade. It pulsed in her like an extra heart beat, full of life and sheer will. For a moment, it made him feel as if he was looking at a night full of the brightest stars...

...And then Kuina had hit him in the head with her shinai, looking completely smug this time.

He stopped looking at Kuina’s soul after that, focusing on training, and things of the physical world. The spiritual world was distracting, while the physical world was more solid and certain. Less blinding too.

He’d decided to beat her without using his strange power. He’d find someway to get stronger and more skilled then his seemingly invincible rival.

And then, before he had been able to fully grasp his rivalry with Kuina or the hidden friendship in it’s wake, Kuina had fallen down a flight of stairs.

And he’d never been able to see her soul again.

Instead, he’d just seen everything that made Kuina herself, her aura, her soul , and whatever else was inside her, disappear into wispy nullity, leaving nothing but an empty and a very tiny body in its place. 

* * *

After Kuina’s death, Zoro resented auras and souls and his weird gift. He avoided looking at them, never tried to see them with such clarity again. Avoided people in general.

That is until he met a boy in a straw hat.

“I’m looking for someone to join my crew.”

Zoro had blinked heavily at the blurry shape before him. Not having eaten for nine days made it hard to focus. Especially on passing weirdos. This idiot was either very brave or very stupid or both to come and talk to him.

Therefore, he hadn’t paid much attention to the aura excluding from the, apparent, pirate, as the boy had been eagerly telling him.

It was only as the idiot pirate kid was racing away, his lanky legs slapping the dirt loudly as he went to join a pink haired boy on the wall, that Zoro saw it.

The boy’s soul.

Zoro had startled in shock, blinking away his fuzziness and trying to focus on what he thought he’d seen. But by the time he’d blinked away the last of the blurriness, the pirate boy had cleared the wall and was gone before he could get a good look.

And as Zoro sat there with the ropes tied roughly around his wrists and his stomach growling loudly in his ears, he concluded that he must have hallucinated it. That it must have been the kid’s aura, not his soul. Because, there was no way that someone could have such a clear and unclouded aura, that would leave a soul so exposed like that. It usually took effort for Zoro to see that deeply. He’d only ever seen glimpses of souls by accident. Nothing that had been so untarnished and bare as the pirate boy’s.

Zoro had shook off the thought, sure he’d been mistaken. He then tried to get as comfortable as he could and leaned back against his pole to get some sleep.

But the next day, his usual torture was interrupted by that same voice.

“I’m Luffy.” 

Zoro had glared up from his blood splattered face, and saw the same boy with the ragged black hair and worn straw hat grinning at him.

And this time there was no mistaking it. The boy - Luffy - had a soul that was impossible to miss.

It seemed Luffy only had three emotions that curled around his soul and other then that his soul was laid bare for the world. It was astounding. Zoro had never met anyone who had so little barriers and no layers of protection. All Luffy seemed to feel was happiness, anger and hunger; They were strong emotions but they hardly covered his entire soul. 

Luffy’s soul was a pure clear colour that Zoro had never seen before. It wasn't white like Kuina’s, it wasn’t like any colour in the physical world. The closest he could compare it to was somewhere between candy apple red, and canary yellow. It was bright though. As bright as the sun.

“I’ll get your katana back,” Luffy had said, a twinkle in his eye. “But only if you join me.”

Zoro had gritted his teeth in annoyance, but Luffy had already run off again, his aura trailing behind him in that sunshine yellow happiness, encasing his brilliant soul.

Afterwards, when Luffy had proved that he was every bit what his soul suggested, and he’d asked Zoro to join his crew again, Zoro found that a small part of the reason he agreed to go with him was curiosity about such a person. A person who bore their soul to the world with so little fear and with nothing to hide. Who was willing to give someone his very essence and then trust in them completely. 

* * *

After meeting Luffy, Zoro started to pay attention to auras again. Or at least when Luffy wanted a new crew member. Zoro felt that he could at least use his power to protect Luffy and himself.

Nami’s aura was an unusual thick cloud of viridian; the colour of greed. It clung to her along with patches of dark purple desperation and horrible gray sadness. Zoro didn’t begin to trust her at all until he saw her aura flicker and change to rose affection and dark navy loyalty that soon outshone even the thickest of her greed.

Zoro started trusting her completely when he saw a flicker of her soul. 

It was as pure and bright as Luffy's. It again wasn't a colour that Zoro had seen before in the natural world, but, although he only caught a few glints, it reminded him of something like a tangerine orange or a soft cream. 

Usopp’s aura was thick with yellow-green of cowardice but was often paired with a titian orange of determination. His lying was a pearly pale colour that seemed to twist through him in a way Zoro had never seen with lies before. They helped pull away his cowardice and made more room for the resoluteness.

And when Zoro saw Usopp’s soul, it was as pure and unique in colour (somewhere between a warm ochre and tepid amber) as Nami’s and Luffy’s.

Zoro soon figured out Luffy was picking souls that matched his own. 

After Usopp, Zoro figured he wouldn't need to look so closely. Because no matter who Luffy chose ... well it always worked out after all. 

But then Luffy’s next choice had been the Cook.

Zoro, at the time, had been preoccupied trying to fight Mihawk, and hadn’t paid attention to any one else, much less their auras. It was only after Zoro had healed up some, and they were on their way to find Nami, that he even had had a real chance to get a look at the annoying waiter who was suddenly their new crew mate.

And even before he’d found out what a sour, foul-mouthed, womanizing, asshole the Cook was, he’d had ... misgivings. 

“What should I cook you all for our first meal together?”

Sanji was asking the crew, but he was really only looking at Nami. And Zoro watched as Sanji’s aura exploded in a dizzying bright rose of pure adoration.

“MEAT!” Luffy yelled predictably and charged Sanji.

Sanji turned, and with a kick of his foot sent Luffy flying and also caused his own aura to change to a raging crimson.

Those were the initial two colours Zoro had been able to see when he’d met the Cook and almost __all __he’d been able to see since. The quick switch between the hot red spicy crimson of anger when around the male crew members (especially Zoro himself) to the sickliest rosy pink of affection whenever around Nami, changing at the blink of an eye, made Sanji a fast swirling whirlwind of red and pink. It was dizzying to look at and another reason Zoro found Sanji’s Love Cook routine even that more intolerable.

Although, Zoro __had__ seen them disappear briefly while they were fighting Arlong.

In fact, it had been shocking to Zoro how completely the light orchid of sympathy, for Nami at Arlong Park, had taken over the Cook. And then when Nami had come back and they’d defeated Arlong, Zoro had been surprised again to see how strongly happiness seemed to run across Sanji’s aura; dandelion yellows and shiny toffee colours seemed to shine the strongest, only second to Luffy’s.

But then again it had been for _Nami._

“How about you make me some fruit cakes, Sanji-kun?” Nami asked sweetly, her eyelashes fluttering lightly on her cheeks.

Sanji swooned, his aura taking on the gag-worthy rose as he twirled toward the kitchen.

Zoro, thankful he was going, as the twister was giving him a headache, was about to turn, when he noticed the rose and crimson finally dying away.

And Zoro glanced back, curious, to peak once more at the Cook’s aura without the incessant tornado around him.

And that was when he discovered, to his surprise, that the Cook had layers and layers of emotions under that whirlwind; that there was a torrent of feelings as thick as the sea.

Zoro had never seen someone with so many.

On Sanji’s way to the kitchen alone, Zoro spotted lapis serenity, violet anticipation, midnight deep thought, and electric excitement.

There were more, many more, but before Zoro could see (and he was startled to find he was __disappointed __he couldn’t), Sanji cut off the sparkling array of colour by closing the galley door with a snap.

* * *

As time went on Zoro started noting more and more common colours that whirled around Sanji almost as much as the Love Cook’s cyclone.

There was Sanji’s cobalt calm that took over sometimes covering the rest of him. And the dark navy blue of loyalty that all the crew possessed. Or the light champagne colour when he was happy. Or the even teal colour when he was talking about his old man. Or that ugly mauve when he was lying. And other colours that flickered through him in cerulean, azure, sapphire, periwinkle, and indigo when he was talking about the All Blue.

Zoro had to admit that Sanji’s aura was a bit fascinating, as Sanji felt emotions so fully and changed so swiftly. Watching him was like watching a violently swirling typhoon. And Zoro was often caught by surprise by what the Cook was feeling. 

But there was another colour that Zoro couldn’t name nor even stand to look at for long. It seemed to be a mix of black tar like fear, with harsh coppery brown of guilt and jet black despair. But it was also darker than fear, thicker then guilt, and harsher then hate. The dark colour disgusted and fascinated Zoro every time he saw it. It seemed to always cling to Sanji, hidden under his other layers, like a leech; Only completely visible when Sanji’s other emotions had faded away, like in the middle of a smoking frenzy, or a dangerous fight or a nightmare.

At first Zoro, had thought Sanji’s soul was that unnameable dark, thick and ugly colour. But eventually Zoro knew it couldn’t have been Sanji’s soul. It was just another layer. Impenetrable, apparently, and full of some sort of acute suffering.

Most of the crew had suffered, Zoro could see that clearly enough within the layers of moving hues, shades, and cracks within their brightly coloured souls. Could see their grief and loss like a starkly painted picture. But Sanji’s suffering seemed to be a trauma that seemed, at least in part, different than grief.

“What are you staring at, Marimo?”

Zoro blinked and startled, realizing he’d been __staring __at the cook. He felt his face getting hot and glared at Sanji, trying to act as if he hadn’t just been caught out.

“Just wondering what was dumber your eyebrow or your whole shit face,” Zoro answered, hastily scrambling for an excuse for all the looking.

Sanji scowled darkly, and Zoro watched as the crimson angry tightened around him, blazing like a fire.

“Screw you, Moss head, “ Sanji snapped, harshly. “You’re the one with the dumb expression on a shit face.”

Zoro felt his own irritation and anger build up at the stupid comment, but before he could reach for Wado, that was leaning against his side, Nami walked by, inspecting her trees above them. Sanji twirled, waving at Nami from the below deck, his attention now fully on her, and his aura switching to his usual sickly rose colour of affection.

But as Sanji turned, Zoro saw between the swirling spectrum of reds and pinks, that dark colour again underneath it all, billowing close to Sanji like a dark caped shadow.

Zoro suddenly had the strange urge to reach out and touch the colour running rampant along Sanji’s aura like a thunderstorm. Curious, in that instance, about that haunting shade, about Sanji’s past, maybe even about Sanji himself.

Zoro cut off the thought, and restrained the involuntarily movement his hand made in his lap towards the cook, and then turned to glare off to sea, clutching his swords tightly to his side.

He reminded himself that he didn’t care about the stupid cook’s aura; Didn’t want anything to do with the lovesick fool. And certainly didn’t want to touch any part of him.

With that stern thought, Zoro turned away from the Cook and stubbornly shut his eyes for a nap.

* * *

As time went on, Zoro found that even when other crew members came on board he didn't pay as much attention to their auras as he did to the cook's.

At first it made sense. Chopper wasn’t a threat. It was obvious from his slick dark fear and his beige wariness. And also from his cerise kindness and his own bright soul, which was some colour close to a soft cherry blossom and gentle chiffon. Nor was Franky a threat; He had a soul made of a clear glass colour that remind Zoro of turquoise or electric blue, surrounded by carmine courage, and cerulean confidence.

But then Zoro knew that he should probably have paid more attention to Robin’s aura, or even Brook’s when they’d first met. They had the darkest auras that Luffy had attempted to befriend. Robin’s was a crepuscular wall of bruised purple suspicion, aphotic fear, and mauve lies. Brook’s too had been a horrible expanse of sorrow and turmoil, full of long swaths of slat and dim gray loneliness, and the largest stretch of black grief. Both worrisome auras, for different reasons.

And yet, Zoro found himself less concerned with those two, and more interested in Sanji’s aura, that flickered with emotions upon meeting Robin and Brook. Zoro had grown accustomed to sometimes viewing things through Sanji’s large sea of an aura. Sanji could be insightful about people, in a different way then Zoro, and it was beneficial to watch him.

At least that’s the excuse Zoro told himself.

In truth, Sanji’s aura was just interesting, entertaining even. Sometimes Zoro would sit on deck, and watch as Sanji surveyed the sunrise, just to watch the aura change into a whole spectrum of wondrous colours, like rainbows latching on sea spray. Zoro would only admit it to a tiny deep part of his heart, that Sanji’s aura was more breathtaking then the actual view.

And besides, Zoro had to watch Sanji because ... well he wanted a glimpse. A glimpse of Sanji’s soul.

Sanji’s soul was the only crew-member’s that Zoro hadn’t seen yet. Every other member of the Straw Hats had a soul as clear and unique as Luffy’s soul. Everyone else had shone through without so many layers to protect it at one time or another so Zoro didn’t even to try to catch a glimpse.

Everyone’s but the Cook's. Between all the rapidly changing emotions the Cook had in his aura, and that sickly lightless colour that consumed his heart, Zoro had never been able to see it.

And it bothered him. Probably more then it should.

In fact, Zoro hadn’t wanted to see someone's soul so badly, since he’d been beaten by Kuina. That longing was an odd and upsetting feeling. 

It had been especially disconcerting when, one day, during one of their usual fights, Zoro had been watching Sanji’s aura, which was the usual angry crimson. They had been going at it for almost an hour, and both he and Sanji were tiring.

Sanji had glared at him, underneath sweat soaked hair.

He’d looked fierce, full of unwavering determination. His aura had hints of the bronze colour along it’s edges.

Zoro grinned at him, savagely.

“Tired, Cook?” He asked, with a slur of derision.

Sanji had scowled darker, and his aura had exploded with the fiery rage, and swam faintly with murky pewter defensiveness.

“Not on your life, Moss Ball,” He’d growled. Then he’d sneered at Zoro too. “But if your getting tired by all means let me kick your ass and send you off for your fiftieth nap of the day.”

Zoro growled at Sanji, and ducked into a firmer stance.

“Who’s tired? I could do this all day with you, Cook. All day.”

But right before Zoro could lunge, it happened. For a moment he had seen Sanji's aura flicker from hot crimson anger to a rosy flash of pink affection.

_That _had never happened before. Not when Zoro and Sanji were fighting. Not when Sanji was staring right at Zoro with that ire in his eyes. Practically, all Sanji ever felt when he looked at Zoro was heated enraged crimson.

But there _had_ been the flicker, and that meant Sanji had just felt _affection._

Zoro felt his mind blank at the idea, and without thinking looked over his shoulder for Nami, absolutely sure she was behind him. 

But there had been no one … and then Sanji had thoroughly kicked him in the face.

“Tch. Stupid Marimo,” Sanji said, his voice halfway between amused and concerned, smoking a cigarette and looking down at Zoro sprawled on the deck. “Better make sure you’re awake next time I’m kicking at you. Or even your thick head won’t protect you from me braining you.”

Zoro, between the kick, the insult and the odd fluctuation in Sanji’s aura, only managed to give Sanji a half growl and a glare. The rest of him was just baffled.

Had Sanji just felt affection for …_him_?__

The idea was preposterous. It was basically impossible.

And yet, soon Zoro couldn't deny it. Sanji’s aura began changing, more frequently, from spicy crimson anger, that had usually erupted around Zoro, to rosy affection when he’d see him. 

Zoro kept watching Sanji's aura in disbelief as it changed further. Gradually, those two colours starting to mix together, until it was hard to tell them apart. And then they strengthened and darkened until they had become one colour; the deepest silk red that Zoro had ever seen. Not heated chili red like Sanji’s battle lust, but a sort of pulsing hue, like a heart might be coloured. 

For the longest time Zoro had no idea what emotion the colour was. And the mystery plagued him. What was the Cook feeling? What did he feel for Zoro?

It wasn’t until one morning, while Zoro had been doing his second round of weight lifts beside the main mast, did he understand.

He’d noticed Robin and Franky wondering by hand in hand, looking softly at each other as they’d been prone to do as of late. It was only when Zoro had seen them lean in for a kiss did he see the pink of their rosy affection turn into that same deep velvety red that possessed Sanji whenever he looked at Zoro.

But Franky and Robin’s auras deep red became even more exquisitely lovely because their auras were mixing together, making them blaze in a brilliant incandescence bond, in a sublime array of loveliest bottomless red. 

It didn't take a genius to figure out that they were in love. That the colour, embracing them as tightly as they held each other, was true authentic love, born of two people who knew and cared for each other greatly. It was caring and affection grown into something else.

_ _Romantic love._ _

So that meant...

_Sanji_ was in love with him. __

And when Zoro was struck with this realization, he didn’t feel disgust or anger or dread, like he might have expected.

Instead, it made his own heart pound loudly in his ears. It made, what could only be joy, erupt through him like a firework.

Zoro had never been able to see his own aura except when he was killing someone in battle. Then he'd catch a glimpse of the pure black clouded colour of hatred and death out of the corner of his eye. 

But now he could see another emotion surrounding him, seeming much stronger then hatred.

"Shit," he sighed, even as his heart pounded and the colour of love grew thicker in the air. 

* * *

The next day, after his ‘realization’, Zoro headed towards the galley. 

He lifted a hand to push the door open but then paused to take a breath, trying to steal himself for what he was about to do.

As he stood there, he could hear, through the galley door, the sounds of clinking silverware and the humming of an off key sea shanty.

Zoro guessed that if he saw the Cook now he'd see an array of colours. Whenever Sanji was cooking, there was always a different range of them in his aura: titian determination, bright silver focus, bronze accomplishment, swirling flint of confusion, and flaxen frustration. The Cook put his heart and soul in cooking and it produced rainbows upon rainbows of colours.

Even thinking about that now had Zoro’s heart beat in his chest like it wanted to run forward without Zoro attached. He took one last steadying breath, raised his hand and and opened the galley door. 

Sure enough, he walked in to the smells of delicious food cooking and the sights of the whole kitchen filled with the Cook’s hues and shades of feeling. There was even more then Zoro had guessed at. He saw alabaster nostalgia, olive green envy, umber worry, coral concentration, mustard anxiety but mostly the large swaths of pure butterscotch joy and buttery happiness. 

The Cook didn't hear him at first until the door slammed behind Zoro. Then the Cook turned, and his aura took on a few more streaks of gingery surprise only briefly before the Cook met his eyes. 

And then love took over.

The deep exquisite red swam through the other colours sweeping them up with it and dissolving them into it. It swirled around the Cook thickly, seeming to fill the kitchen with it’s heady weight. It was tinged here and there with cloudy nervousness, carob worry and that same caramel joy.

The sight made Zoro particularly happy. The thought of what this meant made him even more so. So happy, in fact, he felt a small soft smile creep over his face as he stood there looking at the blonde Cook in his stupid pink apron, spatula in hand and looking irritated. 

“What do you want Marimo?” Sanji snapped, his expression was all annoyance, not betraying an ounce of what he was feeling so thoroughly in his heart.

It would have been almost impressive, if not a bit vexing. 

As Zoro stood there silently, Sanji scowled darker. “If you want to stand around and glare at someone, go do it on someone else’s time. I have supper to cook.”

Zoro opened his mouth to respond, the usual barbs he used for their banter on the tip of his tongue, but the aura of love was still moving around him, surging up and round the kitchen, and intoxicating Zoro with a matching feeling of his own.

It was terribly distracting.

And so instead of saying anything Zoro decided to act instead.

So, he strode across the kitchen, love softly swirling where he walked and catching on his clothes, then grabbed the Cook by his tie and yanked him into a sloppy kiss.

Sanji froze for a moment, his whole body tensing up in surprise. Zoro felt a jolt of doubt.

But then Sanji was kissing back, eagerly, but with a slight tinge of disbelief.

And they fell into each other, kissing in a way that made Zoro feel like they were the only two people in the world, knowing that his aura and Sanji’s were mixing into one, and feeling as if he was being embraced by it, steadied by it, like he’d never been before. Zoro clutched Sanji closer, feeling his heart beat to the rhythm of his own, like one melodious note filling the air.

And finally, after what felt like too short a time, they parted. 

And, as Zoro slowly opened his eyes, as he met the flushed face and the ocean blue eyes, he saw it.

It was just a glint, a moment, when that horrible dark colour, that had never broken before, finally let go of Sanji and it was enough. 

He was able to see it: Sanji’s soul.

It was just as luminous and breathtaking as Zoro knew it would be. The most magnificent and stunning soul he’d ever seen; ablaze with a unique colour that reminded Zoro of all the shades and hues he’d ever seen in the sea.

He grinned and pulled Sanji close, as he leaned in to kiss the most beautiful soul in the world. 

**Author's Note:**

> "For colour is one of the most rapturous truths that can be revealed to man."  
~ Harold Speed


End file.
